#Qatar stock exchange seeks to gain retail investors with stock split - The Peninsula Qatar

Qatar stock exchange seeks to gain retail investors with stock split - The Peninsula Qatar:

Qatar’s stock exchange is setting the stage for a split in the price of stocks in an effort to attract more individual investors to the $160 billion market.

The bourse is preparing to change the nominal value of a share in all listed companies to one Qatari riyal (27 cents) starting next month. Such a move is typically designed to lower the price of an equity and thereby stimulate dealing. Holders of Qatar National Bank QPSC, for example, with a share worth 195.40 riyals on May 2, would hold 10 times the number of equities with a price of 19.54 riyals apiece after the split.

The "face value of the stocks should be at par with other markets in the region, so retail investors can have a better sense of pricing,” Mohsin Mujtaba, director of products and market development at the Qatar Stock Exchange, said by phone. "The economic value of the companies will be the same, at the end of the day.’’